This past week, a task force assembled by Governor Chris Christie disclosed its findings and made over 70 recommendations to improve higher education in the Garden State. The task force was chaired by former New Jersey governor and president of Drew University, Thomas Kean, and included members from the private sector as well as higher education officials. As someone with a doctoral degree in higher education who has worked as a university administrator for the past decade, I want to give my perspective on two of the primary recommendations of the task force.
One of the major issues that surfaced during the task force's investigation was that of outmigration, which those of us who study higher education often refer to as "brain drain." Essentially, this means that New Jersey has a difficult time keeping its most capable students from attending college out of state. Some of our best talent, perhaps even most of it, prefers to leave New Jersey for more prestigious institutions in other states. This is nothing new, and really should not come as a surprise to anyone. The task force is recommending to solve the problem by increasing the capacity of our public universities. But do they honestly believe that will work? I, for one, do not.
We have to begin by acknowledging that New Jersey has some very wealthy people residing here. Of all 50 states, New Jersey ranks fifth in highest income towns per capita income. A lot of that has to do with its proximity to the metropolitan corporate powerhouses of New York and Philadelphia. It's fair to say that children in these wealthiest of families do not attend public school. Usually, their high levels of disposable income allow the upper class to send their kids to elite private secondary schools in New Jersey, New York, or Pennsylvania, of which there are many. Christie's task force may not want to hear it, but students who graduate from The Lawrenceville School or The Hun School of Princeton do not exactly have Rutgers or Montclair State at the top of their lists when applying to colleges.
The only institution of higher education in New Jersey that can truly be considered among the nation's most elite is Princeton University. All the others pale by comparison. The task force wondered aloud why more gifted students in New Jersey don't consider attending private universities like Drew and Seton Hall. Are they serious? I know that there is some bias on the task force with Drew's former president serving as its chair, but come on now. When you look at other liberal arts colleges in the Northeast, such as Swarthmore, Williams, Wellesley, Haverford, and Amherst, it should come as no surprise that New Jersey's best and brightest want to move on to greener pastures. Gov. Kean and the rest of the task force are dreaming if they think that Drew or Seton Hall could ever be considered in the same league. They can dream all they want; it's never going to happen. New Jersey's brain drain will never end as long as we have wealthy people who will not settle for anything less than the best for their children.
A second recommendation that jumped out at me had to do with remediation. The task force said the following:
"New Jersey should conduct a study to understand the extent of the cost of remediation at its colleges and universities, and should adopt a plan to address the issue."
For those who may not be aware, remediation is basically the process by which colleges and universities correct deficiencies of incoming freshman before they begin their formal studies. These deficiencies generally occur in the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic. Those who know nothing about how higher education operates may be horrified to discover that students at this level are even accepted at colleges and universities. Yet, they are.
In my eyes, the problem with remediation is two-fold. First, it demonstrates a failure on the part of our public elementary and secondary schools to get these students up to speed. Basic skills are not something that should be taught at the college level. These skills should be in place long before a student even begins to apply for admission to college. Yet they are not. Sometimes teachers are at fault, but often it has to do with the system itself, which is beyond the teachers' control. Part of that system is the process referred to as "social promotion." Social promotion is the act by which students are promoted even though they may lack the necessary academic skills to advance to the next grade. It is not uncommon for a student to be left back in elementary school. But middle school is a different animal, and it is at this level that social promotion is prevalent. Why are middle school administrators so hesitant to allow students to be left back? The answer lies in the research showing that students who get left back twice are far less likely to graduate high school and far more likely to wind up in prison. Given these statistics, it is easy to see why middle school is such a critical point in the life of a child.
But K-12 education does not shoulder all of the blame. The second part of the problem has to do with the colleges and universities themselves. They are the ones who admit these students. They could easily say "no" when such students apply for admission, can't they? Yet often they don't. Why? Why does this happen?
Higher education, like almost every other institution today, needs to be run like a business. During my ten years as an administrator, I faced enormous pressure to recruit enough students for my programs to meet my revenue projections. In this way, higher education is no different from a sales division in the corporate world. Each year, I'd have to submit my revenue projections for the following year, which were used to help create next year's budget. Then it was up to me to recruit enough students to bring in the tuition money needed to meet the revenue projections. That's how higher education works, folks. Make no mistake about it. If you work in admissions, or if you're the director of a program expected to bring in revenue for the university, then your feet are constantly held to the fire.
Given this culture, what do you expect will happen? Think about it. You may recruit students based on certain academic standards, but when you can't recruit enough students who meet those standards, and your job is on the line...what would you do? In my exprience, most admissions officers and program directors will lower the standards just to meet their enrollment and revenue projections. This is the reality which no one in higher education wants to acknowledge. Employees need to meet the bottom line or they can and will be terminated. Unlike professors, there is no tenure for admissions officers and administrators. You can be a shining star one year, and a sacrificial lamb the next. Meet your projections, or you're out. It's that simple, and that cruel.
Now that you know the dirty little secrets that higher education does its best to conceal, does it come as any surprise to you that the task force was very concerned about New Jersey's abysmal rates of graduation? Gee, let's see. If you can't recruit enough students to meet your standards, and you decide to lower your standards to meet revenue projections, what will that do to your graduation rate? It's hardly rocket science, is it? The only way to raise the graduation rate is to stop admitting students who clearly lack what it takes to finish a baccalaureate degree. All the remediation in the world will not help these students, and the data clearly supports that.
So, will this problem ever be solved? It's hard for me to imagine that it will. Due to New Jersey's severe budget crisis, Governor Christie cut $174 million in funding to higher education last year. Thus the pressure is on more than ever for colleges and universities to raise their own revenue in order to carry out their mission. Plus, are there any college officials who want to risk losing their jobs in this economy? No way. They'll pull out all the stops to meet their projections in order to avoid joining millions of other Americans on the unemployment line. Unless there comes a time when institutions of higher education lay down the gauntlet and stop admitting students who don't measure up, these problems will persist. And to think that the governor's task force wants our best and brightest to stay behind and be part of this mess. Sure, Gov. Kean, and perhaps you want them to help clean it up as well? I'll tell you one thing: they'd probably do a better job than the ones who are overseeing it now.
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